Chapter 6 - The manor
The manor does not follow rules.
That is the first thing I understand.
Not that it is strange though it is but that it refuses to exist within the kind of order I have spent most of my life learning to navigate.
The palace had rules. Even when it was cruel, even when it was suffocating, even when every hallway felt like it carried secrets whispered just out of reach, it still made sense.
Rooms had purpose. Doors led somewhere expected.
Corridors were built for movement, not confusion.
This place...
This place feels like it was built for someone who grew bored of reason.
I have been walking for what feels like hours, though I know that cannot be entirely true. Still, time slips strangely here. It stretches, bends, folds in on itself the same way the corridors do, until I can no longer tell how far I've gone or how close I am to where I began.
And the strange part is.
I don't mind.
There is something oddly freeing about not knowing.
About turning a corner and not being able to predict what will be waiting for me on the other side.
The first set of rooms had made sense.
Bedrooms lined neatly along a hall, each with its own character but clearly belonging to the same world. Soft fabrics. Clean lines. Windows placed for light, for air, for comfort. It felt like a place people actually lived in slept in dreamed in.
Then I turned a corner.
And found a room with a single chair.
Just one.
Placed in the exact center of the space like it was meant to be admired.
No table. No decoration. No purpose.
Just a chair.
I had stood there longer than I meant to, staring at it as if it might explain itself if I looked hard enough.
"...why?" I had whispered.
The silence had been answer enough.
Elias would think that was funny.
Of course he would.
I left the room shaking my head, already smiling despite myself, and continued on.
The next room had been filled with toys.
Not scattered.
Not messy.
Filled.
Bright wooden figures. Carved animals with painted eyes. Tiny swords dulled for children's hands. Dolls dressed in vibrant fabrics. Small puzzles laid out mid-thought, as if someone had been in the middle of solving them and simply... wandered away.
The air in that room had been warm.
Soft.
Touched with sunlight and something faintly sweet, like laughter had lived there long enough to leave a trace behind.
It felt safe.
I had lingered there too.
Then moved on.
Because something inside me wanted to see everything.
To understand this place piece by piece, even if it refused to be understood all at once.
The next room had been weapons.
Not arranged for display.
Not polished for show.
Stored.
Used.
Blades of different lengths rested against racks and walls.
Some gleamed. Others were worn, dulled in places from use rather than neglect.
Bows lined one side of the room, arrows carefully bound and stacked beside them.
There were things I didn't recognize at all tools or weapons or something in between.
The shift had been jarring.
From children's laughter to instruments of violence in a single turn.
And yet—
It didn't feel wrong.
It felt...
Balanced.
Like the manor itself understood something I was only beginning to grasp.
Life.
Protection.
Softness.
Danger.
All existing in the same breath.
I continued walking.
Room after room.
Some filled.
Some empty.
One corridor led to nothing at all just a long stretch of stone that ended in a blank wall, as if someone had simply decided that was enough and stopped building there.
Another opened into a wide space with tall windows and no furniture, only light spilling across the floor in golden sheets that shifted as the sun lowered itself toward the horizon.
And eventually
I found a door.
It was not hidden.
Not grand.
Just... there.
Set at the end of a narrow hallway that seemed almost too quiet compared to everything else I had seen. The stone around it felt older somehow, smoother from time, like this part of the house had existed longer than the rest.
I stepped toward it slowly.
My hand lifted and pushed the door open.
Light spilled in at once soft now, touched with the fading warmth of sunset, the sky painted in colors that seemed too beautiful to belong to anything cruel. The scent of the outside followed it. Grass. Earth. The faint trace of water somewhere in the distance.
I took a step forward...
"You're not supposed to go outside without a guard."
The voice came from behind me.
Close.
Too close.
My entire body reacted before my mind could catch up. My heart jumped sharply in my chest, breath catching as I turned quickly, instinct pulling me back from the doorway as I searched for the source.
There was no one there.
The hallway behind me stretched empty.
Silent.
The light from the open door spilled across the floor, casting long shadows that didn't belong to anyone.
"...hello?" I called, my voice softer than I intended.
Nothing.
The silence pressed in.
I frowned slightly, unease settling into the edges of my thoughts.
Did I imagine that? It wouldn't be the strangest thing that's happened to me.
Still...
I hesitated.
Then took another step forward.
Something dropped.
Fast.
From above.
It landed directly in front of me with a soft, controlled thud.
I gasped.
Not a quiet intake of breath an actual, startled sound that tore out of me before I could stop it. I stumbled back a step, my hand lifting instinctively as if I could shield myself from something I couldn't yet see.
A girl.
No...
A young woman.
She rose from her crouch with the kind of ease that comes from practice, from repetition, from doing something so often it no longer requires thought.
There was no hesitation in her movement.
No apology. No concern for the fact that she had just fallen from a place I hadn't even known could be occupied.
She held a blade.
Small.
Sharp.
And she was using it to peel an apple.
Carefully.
Effortlessly.
As if that was the most normal thing in the world.
"...where did you come from?"
She glanced up at me briefly, her eyes assessing me in a way that felt far older than she looked, then returned her attention to the apple.
"The ceiling."
I looked up.
Nothing.
No opening. No visible structure. Just stone and shadow and the faint suggestion of something I could not fully see.
I looked back at her.
"That doesn't help."
She shrugged.
"You shouldn't go outside without a guard," she repeated, as if my confusion had nothing to do with her.
I stared at the blade. At the way it moved through the apple skin.
"You know you can eat the skin."
"Yes. But i don't like the texture also i can't let you go into the wood... our father would kill us if something happened to you."
I paused lifting one brow.
"Your father?"
I hesitated.
"well he's technically our dad...he is the only parent most of us have ever know"
"Elias?"
"Yes."
"Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs, the ones who accept
you or who you are." she said simply. "The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you
no matter what."
She takes a bite of the apple completely unbothered. I studied her more closely now.
Her clothes.
The cut of the fabric.
The stitching.
It wasn't just clothing.
It was a uniform.
Not exactly like the guards in the capital but close enough that recognition stirred in the back of my mind. More detailed. More precise. Each element carefully chosen rather than standardized.
And around her neck.
A necklace.
Simple.
Unassuming.
But familiar.
I had seen it.
On the children.
On some of the adults.
I just hadn't questioned it.
Something in my chest tightened.
Before I could fully understand why.
Another figure dropped down beside her.
I jumped again.
"How many of you are up there?" I demanded, looking upward again despite knowing I would find nothing.
She shrugged.
"Six."
Six.
Watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
The realization settled slowly.
Heavy.
"...this place is guarded."
"Very."
"Better than the castle." A faint smile touched her lips.
"I find that hard to believe."
She tilted her head.
"Why? You are stand in a manor full of Mercenaries."
The word hit me harder than anything else.
Mercenaries.
A hand touched my shoulder.
As i turn i come face to face with Veronica Standing there as if she had always been part of the moment, her expression already curved with quiet amusement, as though she had been watching me piece this together and found it entertaining.
"Enjoying your walk?" she asked.
I blinked at her.
"...why aren't you in the capital?"
She shrugged lightly.
"I go where the king goes."
Of course she does.
Her gaze shifted past me.
To the two above us.
Her expression changed instantly.
Sharpened.
"Shouldn't you be studying?"
A chorus of groans answered her.
Before I could react
They moved.
Up the wall.
Into the ceiling.
Gone.
I stared.
"...how are they doing that?"
Veronica laughed.
"Training."
I turned back to her fully now, the confusion finally settling into something solid.
"What is going on here?"
Because this.
All of this.
Made no sense.